As Access Carroll celebrates its second-year anniversary, the demand for services at the free, nonprofit medical clinic in Westminster has sharply grown.
Uninsured patients and those who can't afford expensive premiums and co-pays came to the clinic for nearly 4,000 appointments last year, Access Carroll's executive director Tammy Black said.
"We're actually worried about how we're going to keep up with it," Black said of the demand for services.
prospective patients can earn up to twice the federal poverty guidelines, or $20,410 for one person in 2007.
But more patients seen by Access Carroll and Mission of Mercy, Westminster's other free clinic, means less strain on the emergency room at Carroll Hospital Center.
Statewide, more than a third of emergency room visits are for non-urgent conditions that could be treated elsewhere, the Maryland Health Care Commission reported in late 2006.
Emergency room physicians are often the only doctors uninsured patients ever see.
Much of Access Carroll's staff has a background in emergency care.
Dr. Daniel Aukerman, who volunteers at Access Carroll, said his patients frequently remark that they are "treated in a way I ought to be treated as a patient."
Black was an emergency room nurse at Carroll Hospital Center, as is volunteer nurse Trish Ruther. Medical assistant Kris Makoutz also works as an emergency room technician.
Many patients that come to the hospital for emergencies then follow up at Access Carroll, Ruther said.
Out of the 20,000 people estimated to lack proper health insurance in Carroll County, some 70 percent of those suffer from chronic illnesses, said Linda M. Ryan, Mission of Mercy's executive director.
Diabetes has become endemic, especially among Access Carroll's patients.
In a county with one of the highest obesity rates in the state, some 6.4 percent of adult residents have been diagnosed with diabetes, according to the Partnership for a Healthier Carroll County Inc.
The Diabetes Center at Carroll Hospital Center has tripled its staff in the past year, according to center director Susan Steinweg.
For lower-income patients, "the cheaper food is the bad food," Makoutz said, while fresh fruits and vegetables are costly.
At Access Carroll, seven doctors volunteer in-house, but most for only a few hours a week.
